Comments on: This Is Totally Worthless

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 15:54:01 +0000

I’ve watched valid security procedures ignored while the “theater” moves into high gear. They aren’t trying to make the country safer, they just want people to think that’s what they’re doing.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 06:32:37 +0000

One conservative Republican friend and frequent colleague of mine says he is always singled out because he has a large, full beard. Maybe so… his name is so unusual as to be almost certainly unique. I tease him mercilessly that the whole process, which Bruce Schneier would doubtless call “security theater,” is all his (my conservative friend’s) fault.

I’m going to surf elsewhere for a bit. I hate having that “long and painful process” as my last thought before I sleep. 🙂

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 05:28:25 +0000

We are going to have to, but it will be a long and painful process.

By: whig

whig — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 05:26:23 +0000

Will we be able to construct a decent government on the ruins?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 04:10:23 +0000

It’s simple, the people in charge don’t know what they’re doing and they have chased all of the competent professionals out of the various departments. When every hire is a political hire, you aren’t going to get real pros.

In the Federal system everything is fed to the US Attorney, and it’s fairly obvious now that the DoJ is totally compromised. There haven’t been many prosecutions, because they don’t have the staff capable of preparing the cases for trial.

Fitzpatrick in Chicago continues to roll along, because he seems to have the one office in the US staffed by competent people.

This corruption case in New Jersey was centered on a school board, for crying out loud. Yes they should have been prosecuted, but you need something with a little more bite to clean up Jersey politics.

These people have made every government agency worthless, in their own image. The next administration is going to be forced to fire a huge portion of the Federal work force and start hiring from scratch. There hasn’t been a mess this big since Grant.

By: whig

whig — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:46:43 +0000

How did it get this way?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:45:42 +0000

It seems like everything I read about is another time and money wasting boondoggle that doesn’t actually do anything.

Most of these things depend on incredibly stupid criminals and/or statistical improbabilities. You catch criminals by gathering and following clues, not by hoping they’ll come into the station and confess.

Every once in a long while you get lucky, like having Senator Craig’s daughter show up and support him so the cops in Idaho could serve a warrant on her, but most of the time to have to track people down.

By: whig

whig — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:33:02 +0000

If we’re not going to prosecute terrorists what is with the department of pre-crime?